Buzzfeed Polls Catholic Readers

Buzzfeed is the quintessential Millennial website. They are snarky, feature easily digestible news stories, put everything into lists, and enjoy interactive polls. As much serious material the site has, it has the same amount of crude material and two times the amount of nonsense. Needless to say I’m no stranger to them.

At the time of this post 65,000 people took the poll, hardly an insignificant sample size. I feel safe assuming that the majority of the people taking this poll were between 18 and 35 years old. We are getting about as good of a cross section as one can get of mainstream Millennial Catholics in America. Below are the results with commentary.

So 77% of Catholics reading one of the most popular websites on Earth are former Catholics either officially or practically. Think about that. It’s no surprise, I see it with my peers and I understand why. The majority of Catholics our age have witnessed the liturgy as a banal exercise in kumbaya community togetherness with ugly music, vestments, and architecture. Along with pastors who give vapid and childish homilies, many Baby Boomer parents poorly taught authentic Catholicism to their children while also ignoring much of the faith themselves. These were the people who codified the mindset of the 1960’s sexual revolution by popularizing no-fault divorce, civil remarriages, and contraception. The decades following the 60’s have been utterly disastrous for the Catholic Church because of how the Church attempted to fit in with both the culture and fellow protestants.

So, the majority of 65,000 American Catholics reading Buzzfeed never go to Mass. ::facepalm::

Almost all the people who go to Mass regularly seem to also try to assist during the liturgy (which is what I take “listening and concentrating” to mean).

I’d imagine the reason for 41% choosing the Filet-o-fish instead of the 24% that seems to try to take their faith seriously is because they were responding what they should do rather than what they do do. More importantly, one of my favorite parts of Lent is the Filet-o-fish deals McDonald’s runs. Man I love those. It’s one of the biggest arguments to returning to year-round Friday meat abstinence in fact!

It’s unfortunate the author and majority of readers likely are basing their thoughts on awful hymns cryogenically frozen in the 1970’s, sung by people who have no business singing. Yuck!

Not bad…over half of the practicing Catholics seek a more reverent reception. Trying to be optimistic here!

Aside from the sign of peace being distracting in the liturgy and cheesy, no one likes it! Priests don’t HAVE to invite the congregation to do this you know! It’s entirely optional.

So, are those the 24% that go to Mass regularly too? I’d imagine that most of the 76% say that only because the popular news media paints it that way for them. “B-b-but Pope Francis doesn’t judge people!”…”Benedict never kissed babies! Right?”.

I’m generally in the 85% on this. Announcements at the end of Mass are jarring and obnoxious. Often they are also abused by having laypeople come to the ambo to discuss, at length, any such sort of things. I get it though; in many of the Catholic-lite® parishes, since many parishioners don’t care that much about their faith, they don’t care that much about the parish. This means the best time to get the attention of the congregation is when they have no choice but to listen. Give the congregation a reason and urge to care about the parish, and they will outside of Mass. Really, everything can be fixed by the liturgy! ☩